The early career of Mario Carreno progressed like that of so many other Latin American artists who traveled outside of their homelands to learn first hand the lessons of Modernism. Carreno began his career as an illustrator in Havana and pursued painting while living in Mexico in the early 1930s, a period dominated by the Mexican muralists and a style that was forceful and direct with its imagery and subjects based on realism. He then went to Paris (1938-9) and NewYork (1940) where he explored abstraction is mand expressionism to heighten his artistic experience. Upon his return to Havana in1941, he applied these new stylistic approaches to subjects inspired by his tropical island, intent on producing works that were as definitively Cuban as they were modern; and international in appearance. The vase of flowers in this 1943 painting is clearly representative of this formative period in his artistic development as he applies energetic brushwork and bright expressive colors to liberate a rather conservative subject that is a perfect foil for his new aesthetic explorations. The vase occupies the entire space, tipped forward on a table also made of broad color areas that invites the viewer to enjoy the sight and imagine the scent. The flowers come to life in a light-filled setting and exist as an abstract presence as much as a celebration of nature. The colors, almost independent of any description, are distributed in broad flat strokes in order to expose a wide-open space for the background. At the same time, the space is compressed to push the vase forward, submerging it into the sensation of more color. Each stroke is laid directly on the canvas so that sinuous lines define a petal or leaf. Their rhythmic contours link them to a background that is nothing more than colors, like a brilliant sunrise illuminating fields of yellow and orange, undoubtedly a reference to the bright clear light of the tropics. Background and foreground merge and complement each other to create a composition that is made up entirely of fields of color, each perfectly matched to express the beauty of the flowers. CD